


rue for you, and here’s some for me

by halfwheeze



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Religious Homophobia, Language of Flowers, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Unrequited Love, leaving for college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27212965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: Purple hyacinths, forget-me-nots, white chrysanthemums, white azalea and rose.
Relationships: Baljeet Tjinder/Buford van Stomm, Baljeet Tjinder/Buford van Stomm - one-sided
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	rue for you, and here’s some for me

**Author's Note:**

> Shine gave me the idea for Buford picking flowers for Baljeet. I don't think this is what she meant. Thank you to the Bujeet server.

Hyacinths, purple, stand out the most, he thinks. The light blue sting of forget-me-nots next, white mums and cyclamen the color of lavender, though that was certainly missing from the mix. It’s not that he wouldn’t have meant them, they just felt improper for the occasion. A single, fading red rose and two white azaleas sit in the center of the bouquet, and that already says more than he would like it to. He’s held onto it for nearly two weeks since Mother’s day, so it’s not in its best health. No matter. A hand picked bouquet from his own garden is better than leaving nothing, and that had been Buford’s plan before. 

He has to leave Baljeet for university. It’ll be best. That’s what he keeps telling himself anyway. 

Some last ditch effort at actually telling Baljeet how he feels, he throws in some baby’s breath he purchased, because picking baby’s breath is always the worst. It smells awful, but it means something, like all of them do. Seven hundred miles between him and Baljeet. It means something, like all of it does. He’s not sure what he wants it to mean, what he thinks it should mean. He doesn’t know who he is with this love that means more to him than he ever wanted it to, and he has to know. He has to be someone, he has to learn who that someone is, he needs to be someone besides the bully, the bare knuckle breaker, the besotted best friend of Baljeet Tjinder. He needs to be something else. 

He puts the flowers next to Baljeet’s window and taps it like he always does, only to run across Baljeet’s yard as fast as he can, hopping the fence. He didn’t use their emergency knock, didn’t give Baljeet a reason to check quickly, and he knows that’s why he’s getting away with this. He’s always left stuff for Baljeet to find later, and Baljeet knows that he probably won’t be there when he comes to look. He knows that’s why he’s not being interrogated right now, he knows that’s why he’s able to get home, he knows that’s why he’s able to get into his car and leave, he knows that’s why he’s able to get to the Danville city limits before his phone is ringing. He doesn’t want to answer it. 

He lets it ring. 

He’s only hit the edge of the Tristate Area before he caves. 

“Hello?” 

He’s met only by enraged screaming. 

“Jeet?” 

The screaming turns into sobbing. The roiling in Buford’s stomach turns to rolling, and he feels so sick he has to pull over.  _ Baljeet.  _ God, he left him, he left him, he left him, he needs to leave but how can he leave when leaving means  _ leaving?  _ Baljeet is his best friend. He wants to hold the smaller boy’s hand, lace their fingers, pretend that they’re something that they’ll never be. He coughs. 

“Jeet? You okay over there?” he asks this as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening here, and he knows that Jeet is gonna skin him for it before the sobbing even stops. Baljeet has this scary quick way of collecting himself sometimes, turning from emotions to the sharpness that had made him so off-putting to people in middle school, and Buford knows that he deserves whatever is coming his way. 

“I spoke to your mother,” Baljeet says, his voice devoid of the emotion that the wordless noises had been so full of. Buford swallows. 

“She tell you?” The silence that follows is deafening in Buford’s already silent Buick, Baljeet’s usually shuffling and chattering maligned for this careful, creased callousness, this uncaring care that Buford doesn’t know what to do with. Baljeet sighs, one of those sharp exhales through the nose, and Buford swallows. 

“I do not know why  _ you  _ did not,” Baljeet replies, lips obviously pursed, impatient eyebrows furrowed together in a way that Buford can always see in his mind’s eye. And therein lies the problem, doesn’t it? 

“I have to go, Jeet. I can’t… be here. Not anymore,” Buford says, fingernails digging into the meat of his hands. Baljeet hums. 

“And the flowers?” he asks, the impatience taking on a hint of insecurity, of suspicion. Buford wishes that he had let those lie, wishes that Baljeet had let that go. Instead, he sighs, running a hand through his hair. 

“What do you think the flowers mean, Jeet?” he asks sarcastically, a bit of the stress leaking into the meanness in his voice, letting his true emotions show through. Baljeet clicks his tongue. 

“I think you should tell me,” Baljeet commands, hard and harsh, undeniable. Buford swallows. 

"Hyacinths for regret. White mums for truth. Forget-me-nots for remembrance, cyclamens for goodbye. Azaleas... take care of yourself, that's what azaleas mean," Buford explains, leaving out the last bit, the bit that shows the most. He doesn’t want to do this. He can’t admit where he stands - Jeet and Ginger only broke up a month ago, Jeet doesn’t go for boys, Jeet wouldn’t go for  _ him,  _ Jeet had never liked him the way that Buford  _ always  _ has, Jeet won’t like it. Baljeet will leave and Buford will still fucking  _ love him,  _ and and he won’t even be able to be angry about it. 

“And the rose?” Baljeet asks, because of course he does. His hand goes through his hair again, yanking this time, and Buford thinks he could cry. Baljeet knows what the fucking rose means. He must. 

“What the fuck do roses usually mean, Jeet?” Buford asks in return, hating the way that the tears creeping in make his voice even more crackly than usual. 

“I think you love me,” Baljeet says, “but I also believe you regret it. Am I so horrible to love, old friend?” Jeet’s voice is cracking too, and Buford wants to wrap him up in all of those hugs he always denied himself the comfort of. 

“Loving you is my favorite thing about me, Jeet,” he replies, much too raw and much too honest, hyacinth purple and chrysanthemum white, his tone camellia pink.  _ Longing for you.  _ Hadn’t he always? “Loving you is my favorite thing about me and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t love you and watch you love other people in a way you’ll never love me and I need to walk away before the flowers are on fire. I have to,” he says, prays really, because love has always been the closest thing to God. 

“Buford,” Baljeet says, a prayer the same, a benediction, the holy sacrament in Hindi mouth. Buford had been Catholic once upon a time, during childhood and before he and his mother talked about what a God like that does not love. He knows that there’s a God like that loves some people like him, but he’s never forgotten the words of a man in clerical dress, just a man, but just nothing. Buford swallows his love of God and his love of Baljeet and they taste the same. 

“It’s okay, Jeet. Just… give me a while, okay?” he says. He barely hears the sad little  _ okay, Buford,  _ before the call is clicking off, his cell phone sliding to the floor of the car, and Buford is driving again. He’s putting more distance between him and the boy that he loves, and he tells himself that this is healing. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! My pnf tumblr is @adysonsweetwater.


End file.
